The manufacturer touted the devices' fast charge time: three hours' playback capacity after just three minutes connected to a power source, be it AC adaptor or a computer hooked up via the player's built in USB connector. Sony claimed the players can operate for 28 hours on a full charge, though that's for ATRAC 3-encoded songs - MP3s yield 27 hours' operation.

The 25g, 7.9cm-long gadget has a five-band equaliser, single-line OLED screen and, on the 1GB and 2GB models, an optional FM tuner. Consumers can choose from pink, violet, blue, silver, black and lime green versions, too, all of which come bundled with Sony's SonicStage 3.4 software.